Why I Like Mark Buehrle

Well, mainly, I'm a White Sox fan and he's done a lot for the team. But I would also like him as a pitcher no matter what team he played for. Now I'm not saying Buehrle's one of the best pitchers out there and I'm not even saying he's a legit ace on any staff. There are a shit ton of pitchers that are better than Buehrle. But after I just saw him pitch today and realize how The Bright One and David MVP Eckstein have shit on him in the past, I thought I'd explain myself.

Mark Buehrle is the quintessential groundball pitcher. Here's a guy who's sole purpose on the mound is to get batters to hit balls to his infield. And Buehrle is fairly successful at this. Now he's obviously not the greatest, but with a career 4.15 FIP in nine seasons, you most certainly can do worse. A LOT WORSE. (At least he's better than Jason Marquis!). The reason inducing groundballs are nice is for two reasons. The first is that it limits home runs. Buehrle plays in an extremely homer friendly park so the more balls hit on the ground and the less hit in the air, means a lower ERA for Buehrle and helps out his team. Secondly, inducing ground balls means less pitches Buehrle throws. Batters Buehrle faces sees pitches that they think they can hit early in ABs which really gets turned into an out by the infield defense.

One criticism Buehrle gets is that he can't really strike anyone out. In fact, in his no hitter, he only struck out like four or five guys- even though he retired 27. This can be advantageous though- as related to this last point. Strikeouts take a lot of pitches. More pitches means more strain on a pitchers arm. But because Buehrle takes guys out with usually fewer pitches, he can stay in the game longer and thus help out the bullpen. And no matter how good the Sox bullpen is (and right now it's pretty damn good), as Moneyball stated "There's a reason guys are in the bullpen and not starters". Plus, as "Bull Durham" so nicely put it: "Strikeouts are facist"

Now, as I stated in my opener, Buehrle is nowhere near perfect. Relying heavily on your defense can be a huge problem, especially during his 2009 campaign. Right now, the White Sox infield is pretty bad, especially with Alexei Rameriz at SS. By inducing ground balls into a defense that can't field ground balls an not striking out guys will translate into less innings for Buehrle with more runs that the White Sox offense has to make up for. However, this is not entirely Buehrle's fault. Kenny Williams has had Buerhle for his entire tenure as GM and should have prepared for this (and a GM should plan on having a good defense every season no matter what anyway). Not only that, but Buehrle isn't the greatest guy at NOT walking people. If you're going to not strike people out, you have to at least NOT walk people- something Buehrle has not done so well throughout his career.

But despite Buehrle's disadvantages, he still has a lot of value to any team. He adds depth to any rotation and out on a team with an above average to great defense, Buerhle will be spectacular. I think his "traditional stats" this year will be pretty bad and not worth owning in fantasy baseball, but I'm still glad he is in my team's rotation.